


Pink

by nerdiekatie



Series: Voltron Ficlets [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, altean color symbolism headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9411881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdiekatie/pseuds/nerdiekatie
Summary: Allura narrowly avoids being a diplomatic disaster on the day of her birth.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, essentially, this runs off the headcanon that Alteans have an old wives tale where you can predict a child's fortune from the color of their eye scales.

Allura narrowly avoids being a diplomatic disaster on the day of her birth. 

The official statement says that the new Princess and the Queen are in perfect health. No pictures are released.

The tabloids take grainy pictures on paparazzi droids as the royal family leaves the hospital. The princess’s blanket slips for just a moment. 

That’s all it takes. The evening edition features a close up of the princess’s face and the headline PRINCESS’S EYE SCALES PINK: WILL SHE BE THE DOWNFALL OF THE PLANET?

In the week it takes for the palace to publish their response, people search their memories for any child born with pink eye scales who lived long and happy lives and brought good fortune to those around them. None come to mind. Blue would have been better. A nice, royal powder blue like King Alfor. Those children always grow up to be strong leaders, everyone agrees. 

The palace tries to put a positive spin on Allura’s pink eye scales. Pink, they argue, is the most formal color. It befits the princess’s station to have pink eye scales. Surely, the princess will likewise be gracious and wise, and such things are only to the benefit of Altea. 

It’s a good spin. It just comes too late. 

In an older, more superstitious era, Allura might have been left in the hills or put away quietly. Allura is fortunate. Her parents treat her no differently than any child they might have had. She doesn’t understand why pink is such a bad thing until her mother dies. 

Then, the palace is draped with pink. The funeral is a sea of pink. Allura and her father wear pink for a month. 

But when Allura is finally allowed to put away her mourning clothes, her skin is still draped in spiraling ribbons of pink. Even with long sleeves to cover the rest of her markings, her eye scales will always be out there, and whispers will follow her the same way pink does.

Allura decides that if she will never escape pink, she will claim pink. 

Thereafter, none of the princess’s clothing is without pink, even if Allura has to add it to the trim herself. She wears pink to every function (it is, after all, a very formal color) and pretends that she is not simultaneously satisfied and saddened when she sees her people shift uncomfortably in her presence. 

Allura tries to be gracious and wise to prove her parents faith in her. She pretends to ignore the whispers, but she is horribly, violently angry at the unfairness. 

Then, the war begins. Allura begins to doubt. 

She wakes up ten thousand years away from her home and her family, and Allura knows. Her fate was not, as the tabloids predicted, to bring about the fall of Altea. Allura’s fate is to mourn. 

There’s no one left to drape the castle in pink, and Allura has long outgrown her mourning clothes. But Allura is covered in pink, and that will have to do.

**Author's Note:**

> So, on Altea, pink is the new black. Put otherwise, black is our more formal color, which we also use as a color of mourning, and pink serves the same purpose on Altea. 
> 
> you can find this and the rest of the series on my tumblr at http://nerdiekatie.tumblr.com/search/kay+writes  
> or, you know, you can just keep reading it here


End file.
